More Washington Adventures

We took the dogs out towards eastern washington today, they had a three hour hike. OhLa is lying down sleeping for the first time ever I swear!! They are dog tired. :) The place we went to is really neat, it's a forestry road that washed out a couple of years ago. The river is running right down the middle of the road in places, there are trails so you can hike around the washed out bits, then keep walking along this empty road. It was a bit creepy, kind of feels like you are in an abandoned town or something. Great place for dogs though, hiking, swimming, squirrel chasing and all off leash!

OhLa really likes the sunroof in the Subaru......

Fetching sticks!

Three bumps on a log!

Two Pretty Girls

We are heading back to PG tomorrow (and back to work, poo!). We are now on the countdown to OhLa's first trial! Only six days of training left until the big show!

Greetings From Washington!

We are having a great time here in Washington, and managed to get some toy hogging

in.....

And some beach time!

Here's OhLa's funny swim technique.....hilarious! She swims like a normal dog in the lake but it seems the waves have her in a bit of a flap!


We went to the local dog park today, they had a great run. It's a nice park, though it affirmed my beliefs that people who go to dog parks are a bit crazy. Seriously annoying self appointed dog trainers are forever providing unwanted "advice" to unsuspecting park go-ers. I'm glad I know better and my dogs (and I) prefer to keep to ourselves, but it makes me sad to hear the words "dominant" thrown out there so often. We all know what that leads to (thanks to you know who the "famous" tv trainer). I am happy that my stable dogs can tolerate telling off a humping husky and help a sweet little pitbull learn that not all dogs are going to get all up in her face and hump her (while the owner is yelling EASY EASY EASY from 50 feet away). Seriously people, like yelling easy is going to alleviate the dogs anxiety issues. Lucky for the dog it has learned how to tune out the owner almost completely (I would too if someone nagged me constantly!) If the dog didn't have anxiety issues to start with it will now, now that you have constantly reienforced with your shrill voice that there is something "wrong" with greeting a group of dogs politely. Sigh. End rant, suffice it to say there is something great about living in the north where you can run your dogs in the bush and not see another person. Having the beach relatively near by is almost worth the trade off though!

Bad handler, great dog!

I think I must have smacked myself at least ten times this past week. (Reminds me of the V8 commercials!). OhLa has been doing lots of great stuff, do you think I can remember the video camera? Not so much! She has conquered the tire (after hanging herself in a last minute Abort! attempt, no worries she's fine and a whole lot more careful now) and the chute. The table, well, she gets up and lies down so that'll have to do for now. It isn't a super performance by any means but it'll get us through for now. We're working on moving the two sets of six weave poles together right now. She weaves a set of straight six like a pro! Nice and fast and with style, so I'm working on getting her up to a full set of 12.
Saturday we embark on a US adventure, I have to go and write an exam for my upcoming move, so Ohla is joining me and we'll hopefully have some beach adventures and new agility adventures to report soon! Keeping my fingers crossed that customs will be nice to me this time!

I'm a Good girl, really!

I think if there is one thing I have learned about having a pointer it's that a good measure of stubborness pays off.
When OhLa first came she was a lunging snarling mash of teeth and food stealing pushiness at meal time. She would dive on the counter and steal what she could, dive in the other dogs bowls and then scrap with them when they tried to protect their own dinners. It wasn't pretty, and I doubt she pulls that kind of behaviour at home either. Too bad for her I decided to make it my mission to have her eat her meals with the rest of the group, politely, and waiting her turn (which is last, dead last for the dog with the least manners!). It has been a long process, first having her eat in her kennel and wait to be released. Then gradually desensitizing her to the meal process. Mollie sits, I put her bowl down. Marty sits, I put his bowl down...OhLa dives, OhLa goes in her crate and does not get fed until everyone else has finished their supper. We made it past Mollie, Marty, and Cai, onto Toque...not bad, Jorja and SoBe = diving. She can push those two and she knows it. Finally after a couple of months of the exact same routine (dish diving = OhLa goes to her crate and eats last), she made it past all eight dogs and came to her turn. OhLa sits, I put her dish down, release her (a bit quickly truthfully but I really wanted success) and she eats her supper. But half way through she suddenly realises that other dogs are eating too, they might have something better, she leaves her bowl to snarl at them and shoves them out of their dish. Back to the crate, and the remainder of her supper waits for ten minutes or so before she sees it again. It has been three weeks since then, and tonight I wanted to video just how well she has done. I haven't been feeding her with the group every night, some nights she gets to go first and get her meal straight away in her kennel. I don't want meal times to be stressful, just a gradual desensitizing and learning experience. Right now I am working on proofing her to not release on the word "good", pretty impressive though that she can focus to work through that even with all the other bowls so easily accessible. At last it has become more rewarding to be patient than it is to be pushy. A few weeks ago she would have tried to cream Heidi for being so close to her dish, or shoved Heidi out of her bowl and gaurd both bowls. Tonight she even played tradesies. My dogs always go check out each others bowls when they are finished and make sure every last drop is gone. OhLa couldn't cope with that even last week but now she is joining in the game. Yes, it would have been way easier to just feed her in her crate, but look at her now! So here's the video (no comments on the laundry pile or the state of my dirty house at the moment!)

Weave Got Rhythm, Have You?

It has been a busy week here at the little house with lots of dogs! I hit an all time high this week, 18 dogs and counting! I have a Momma and a litter of seven pups though, so pups at two weeks don't really count (at least in my books anyway!). OhLa has been having a good time, she is very interested in the pups. Much to my relief this temporary fostering will be over tomorrow and we will be back down to a much more reasonable 10 dogs.
This week in training, we started out building dog walk confidence. Dog walk you say? Why yes, when I was in abbotsford running the other brats in the regionals, I bought one of these:


Since we have already trained the teeter, the more scary of the obstacles with skinny planks the dogwalk was a cinch. It helps too, that OhLa has discoverd jumping off the top railing of my deck will land her in the agility yard (much to my horror she does this regularly). She can be seen from the kitchen window randomly running back and forth along the dogwalk all by herself funny girl! She has not however learned that the art of nose targeting applies to dogs who are running full obstacles.

We also spent some time working on weave pole footwork. She has the idea of weaves down, but she didn't get how to move with rhythm so for that, we went to the old style chute poles. If I had enough sets of two I would use those, but we don't so we improvised. What I really don't like seeing the video is how easily the poles move out of the way, not good it really teaches the dogs to push the poles which you don't want. However, a little style practice and we'll go back to the other set.



We finished up this week with an agility fun match, yippee! OhLa's first time out with a judge, other dogs, and a real trial atmosphere. She did really well, I was very proud of her! We ran around a few jumps, did the tire backwards and needed to have the chute held open (Woops! Forgot to teach the chute!) BUT huge success in my books: she didn't run away to go visit the other dogs; she sat, waited and held her start lines all three runs; she did all the obstacles nicely including the strange teeter, the newly learned dogwalk, and drum roll please.....6 straight weave poles! Not only did she do them, she did them fast and with perfect footwork, someone even commented on how nice she weaved! She jumped the jumps, responded to my front cross cues, and stayed with me through 18 obstacles (with lots of treats inbetween of course). I was very proud of her! Of course, I forgot the camera at home so no proof! Now I need to work on the tire, the chute, the table (it has been a while for that one) and I need to teach her how to rear cross. And of course the ongoing work of weave poles. So much training, so little time!

Some weekend work

More work on weave poles this weekend. After I did this video I moved the poles into line, she did okay, but too many errors to consider it successful so we'll go back to them opened up a bit for the next session.


And just for fun, some video of OhLa with a Kong toy I just got. You put the kibbles inside and let them go for it, she had fun! Such a funny girl.


Right now she is torn between playing with Heidi and this cute little character here who is hanging out for a while waiting for his new home:

It was a big day!

Two big things today.....

The 6 pole introduction:


And the full teeter workup! We need to finish the teeter training to prepare for the next big surprise....coming soon!

We're Back!

Yup, okay so we are back! Monday was a long drive home from the lower mainland, but we all survived, no worse for the wear. OhLa enjoyed her home vacation, and was raring to go when she got back here. First thing she did (after checking on the contents of the counter) was to launch herself into Heidi's face for a good wrestle interspersed with sumptuous grass eating (and there was lots after ten days of rain and no mowing!). Life is pretty good for her these days, now that she isn't being left out of the raw food yummies! All the activity and toy training and not enough nutrients left her a little thin all of a sudden. She is looking great now (her mom will be pleased she's gained another 0.5lb since we arrived home this week) and not so much like a little mexican street dog! She wanted me to show you all the goodness....
.
So on Tuesday we had a rest/play day as I had to mow the lawn after work. Holy smokes, the mower quit several times, it must have rained a lot!


We did get a little practice in with the Touch it! Target plate after the lawn was (mostly) mowed.



Wednesday was return of the weave poles.... we had to go back a step and open them up a bit the first session since she'd had some time off. I've also gone to rewarding her with a tupperware container of high value treats instead of the toy. Hoping to keep weight on the little maniac so she is getting cheese, hotdogs, and rollover as reward instead of the toy.




Thursday we went up to the farm for a good run and some practice in the tunnels, I kinda thought we better get on that one! She was pretty distracted, zipping all over the place and randomly taking the tunnel at will. Her first trial should be interesting....!! :) Friday we did more weave practice and a small jump grid, and Sat/Sun have been swim and run days. Too hot for training, but great for swimming! I keep forgetting the camera when I take them out, she is a strong swimmer and can outdo all of my guys for the toy unless they get a head start!

Happy Holidays!

OhLaLa has gone on holidays for the week! She has headed home to go play with her pal Elliott and to visit her mom while I head off to the agility regionals with some of my dogs. Holy is my house ever Q-U-I-E-T! She really does have quite the presence! We will miss her though (except for the part where she launches onto the counter to steal and eat a banana peel at mach 10) and look forward to seeing her again! Meet us back here Tuesday June 15th for more OhLa adventures!

Sunday OhLa had her first really big off leash run with the dogs! I have been paranoid about taking her out off leash in a place that wasn't fully fenced just in case. I feel confident now though that she has a good recall and that she has bonded to me and the other dogs, i.e we are more interesting than whatever birds she might find! We went out to a big park at the river, they ran and swam for two hours! She enjoyed being in the water and had a big grin on her face the whole time. It was great, I had the whole day to do chores afterwards they were all so tired. :)

Saturday, Day 6

Sessions 11 and 12. We went out to the farm this morning and everyone had a good run. They were pretty pooped most of the day, but we did get in a couple of sessions this evening. It's pretty exciting, you can actually see her starting to bend now!

Session 11


Session 12

Weaves Day 5 (Friday)

Thursday was a write off completely for me, so OhLa got a rest day. I brought her out on Friday for a session with the weaves, I turned the poles in a wee bit more than day 4. Only one session on Friday, I had a lot of catching up with life to do so she got to play chuck-it instead! (Which she loves)

Weaves day 4

Morning session

I moved the poles to the middle of the yard instead of at the one end.



Afternoon session

I staked the poles, moved them a little closer and turned them a little.



Evening session
I left the poles the same as the afternoon.

2 x 2's day 3 (or 2.5 depending on how you look at it)

Here are sessions 5 and 6 on the weave poles. I'm really happy with her drive, looking ahead for the poles, and going for the toy. It helps that I worked today and she's been cooped up in her crate! I need to work harder on her looking for the first set of poles, this is my fault for not rewarding enough inbetween the two sets. I also love the barking when she doesn't get the toy, I shouldn't encourage it at all because I'm sure her mom doesn't want a barking dog on course but if she could swear and say "what the f&*#" when she doesn't get her toy I'm sure she would!

Here we Go!

Session one
No video, forgot the camera sorry! I took OhLa to the indoor training centre and worked on shaping running between the two poles using the clicker and food. Dropping food in the grass is not such a great idea so we had to go indoors for that one.

Session 2
Came home, gave her a rest and then did the same exercise in the grass with no clicker and a toy instead.



Session 3
Two sets of two. Working the arc and rewarding in between the two sets 50 percent of the time. I didn't do very well at that! Note to self. :) Time to start staking the poles as well.



Session 4 was the same as session two, but with me rewarding in between the poles more often. I also switched from a toy to a food tube for reward as she was quickly losing interest in the toy and going off to sniff and eat grass. Sadly, I bumped the camera when I hit the record button and the whole session was a lovely picture of the top of the neighbours shed!

Getting ready for weaves

Now that we have some rear end awareness, a toy that Ohla really likes (her favorite ball stuck in a sock) and some shaping practice we are about ready to train weaves. Someone commented to me yesterday that I should do the 12 poles in 12 days with her, just to see if I can do it. I'm tempted, for sure! Not sure if I want to really challenge her like that though. Maybe that's a cop out, who knows? It took me a lot longer than that to teach Heidi! I'll keep you posted!

Surfing Safari

I did some more video tonight of OhLa's teeter work. I apologize, the videos are all out of order!

Step One is the Wobble Board (a certain someone knocked the camera askew, wonder who that was????!!)



Step 2 is the Bang game from the previous post

Step 3 is run the plank. As you can see in the video she isn't quite running with gusto yet. I'd like to see her have more confidence with running straight to the end and hanging off before I start letting the board drop. Also, I could be using way better treats, she was just getting plain kibble tonight. Some hot dogs may be in order!



Step 4 is to surf the teeter



Step 5 is Hup hups, hop on the raised board and nose touch



Step 6 is to put it all together! We're not quite there yet, but soon!

I was at a seminar not that long ago where the presenter said "expect more, get more." With OhLa that has proven to be very true, I have progressed a lot of steps really quickly with her and challenged her early. It is really working, she is the type of dog that has no problems being wrong, she can accept failure and try harder to figure things out without getting weird. On the other hand, she runs into things like a bull in a china shop, she has no sense of boundaries!

Teeter progressions

Session 1 on the bang game



Session 2

Presents, Poking, and Contacts

Greetings from OhLa! If OhLa could talk she would say "Squeeeee!!!!" Her morning ritual consists of waking up with the sun (oh yes, 0530 is such a fun time to be up!)and bringing me presents and then poking me in the face with them. Such lovely sharing! Her favorite is generally socks, but if I don't take the lovingly delivered sock (cause gee, maybe I am sleeping?!) she brings me all kinds of presents. Like my shorts, my shirts, toys, and this morning I was privvy to a fork she stole off the counter. What a nut. She loves to show you what she's got. Take for example this afternoon I was cleaning out the flowerbed. She brought me a clump of dirt and poked me with it. How much more thoughtful can you get? :)

We did a little a-frame work today. I've ordered a touch-it to experiment with. http://www.nosetouch.com/touch_it.htm I've been thinking about these for a while, I figure it can't hurt to tune up the girls before regionals and maybe work with Heidi and Sobe as well as OhLa. Anything that is efficient and saves me time is good in my books! The only way you can have and train nine dogs and work is by being efficient in your training!

Hand Targets

Here's a little video of OhLa doing her hand targets. She is working on keeping repeating nose touches despite distractions. She only gets rewarded if she nose touches without looking at the hand with the food in it after each touch.

Look Ma, I can stand on my head!

The stool was too easy, so we went to something bigger last night!

Flat!

Here's OhLa doing her supa fast downs. Just a couple to show you her potential! If she does rally later she'll have a great moving down!

Walking on walls

Last night in class we worked on a few things, and I took away some homework. We had to show off a newly shaped behaviour, so I showed off OhLa's "head down."

Then we worked on figure eights around posts, working on the dog staying beside you on either side and not cutting behind you. She did pretty well in the not cutting behind me part, but on left turns she wants to run out ahead of me. She cut me off every time! So that will be a work in progress for this week.

Next we worked on a sit stay, walking out about twenty feet, dropping the toy, and then releasing the dog to the toy. OhLa's sit stay is improving, but I find that I don't trust her much. I don't feel like she has understanding in that department, and since that is something that will carry on through everything in her career it is definitely worth me putting some time and effort into working on it.

Finally we started wall walking. Sound strange? Yep! It is a rear end awareness exercise, you teach the dog to put their back feet up on something, then up the wall into a hand stand. It sounds strange, and it is, but it's a great muscle builder and a stunning parlor trick to boot!

Ahhhhh!!!!

I will get it yet!!

The camera has arrrived, now how do I use it?!

I've got some video of OhLa playing fetch with Marty yesterday, now I just have to figure out how to get it on here! It is too big to upload directly on here so I'm putting it on youtube, but then how do I get it into here? Questions questions questions......
In the meantime, I did start OhLa's 2x2 weave training on Saturday. I'll head back out to the training centre today and see what I get (and maybe catch some video of it too!), see if she remembers. I shaped going through the poles with food then transferred to a toy on Saturday. She kind of got it, but I'm not convinced she understands, but OhLa seems to be the kind of dog that needs to think about it for a day or two before she "gets" stuff so we'll see.

Okay, so i am trying the "embed" feature. Fingers crossed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v55JOANQU4

Musings from this week

I spent last weekend at a dog trial in Armstrong BC. Lovely venue, great people as always, nice trial, yucky weather! Here I thought I was going to the sunny Okanogan, NOT! One day I will be able to buy a nice camp trailer with a bathroom and a furnace, but not today. Sigh, the back of the truck it is for this group!
OhLa came with us so I could continue her training while away in new environments and so I could be sure to keep an eye on her. I learned a few more important things about her over the weekend that were interesting. One, she is an excellent traveller. She does her business with no fuss, which is really nice. Two, she has terrible leash manners! I had her on a flexi for potty breaks and I'm quite sure my right arm is a little longer than my left now! Too bad for her though that she is stuck with me, I have ways..... She walks beautifully on a sense-ation harness. Ha! She is also obsessed with eating grass right now, not sure what that is all about but perhaps she was a cow in her former life. She is getting her greens via kelp in her meals so maybe she is just enjoying the lovely spring offerings for the novelty of it.
We worked on hand targets, sits, downs, and stays while we were away. All near the outdoor ring and inside the barn. She did great, not so sure about lying down in the dirt at first but once she got used to it she was offering downs like a pro in the dirt. :)
We also successfully shaped a back up this week. It's great, she can back up quite a long ways! We also started working on circle work which she is pretty good at, and I've introduced the travel plank and the target plate.
We start contacts and weaves class next week, so we need to be prepared! My goal for this weekend is to introduce her to the 2x2 weaves and the tunnel.

Shaping Up

Today was for shaping! I spent three sessions working on shaping a back up with the little miss. Pure free shaping, so I sat on the couch and clicked for any backward motion and used placement of reinforcement to help me out. OhLa had a hard time with this, her breakfast dish was sitting on the couch next to me. She was a wee bit obsessed with it! She never touched it, she had her nose resting right on the side of the bowl once, but never went for it. This is good, and I don't really mind that our shaping session wasn't entirely successful as her learning to work with the distraction of a food bowl right next to her is important stuff! We did manage to get some understanding of what the activity is, but definitely not a "back up" worthy of a cue just yet.
She had her second building blocks class tonight, and tonight's class was all about shaping! Great stuff, managed to get her two front feet on an overturned bowl, two front feet in the bowl, and then one of her back feet on the bowl. This morning sessions really helped, she is just starting to click in her mind that her back feet move independently of the front and that she can do something with them! Our homework this week is to teach a trick. Not sure what that's going to be yet! I might cheat and use "back up" as our trick, since we are already working on it and it hasn't been introduced in the class yet. That or I teach her something completely ridiculous!

We have Haw! Oh boy do we ever have Haw!

Picture this: Ohla comes out to the yard for her training turn. She is dancing around trying to get at the treat bag which I put on the fence. I get out my handful of treats. The wobble board is leaning up against the fence. I reach for it, and so does Ohla. Oh yes, she not only reached for it, she jumped up and pulled it out of my hands and down to the ground with her paws and leapt on it! I can confidently say we have the full Yee Haw! Good grief, it was more like, Yo B*#ch, give me my board!!
She also did one jump up to 22" today. Still having trouble transferring from hand to hand she is so obsessive over the food. Interestingly, the side she is less keen to do is the one that makes her turn left into me to get the food. The cookies are the same in the left hand, she just wants the right that much more.
I dropped the jump back down to 16" and had her go over and come to me for the toy as well. I am very pleased that she is just as interested in playing tug with me as she is to get the cookies, and is making nice tight turns to come back and get the toy.

Next on the Haw list is the teeter. This is unbelievable, never have I had a dog do this in all the dogs I've trained from the beginning. A shout out to her mom: has she ever done plank work? All I did was walk over to the teeter thinking I'd let her play the bang game with it. When I walked over she jumped up on it and started heading to the end! Luckily I was able to put my foot on it and keep it from tipping. WOW is all I can say. So I changed my training plan in the moment and put a jump standard underneath the tipping end of the teeter to hold it up and let her run the plank to the end, where she received a pile of cookies and then I let her jump off. We did that three times, she happily ran the plank all three times. The third go she really let her rip and ran right to the end with her front toes hanging off the end, exactly what I want to see. I can't believe it, I've never had a dog so raring to go over the teeter like that. Now I really have to work her sit stay so she can sit at the end while I get ready to hold the teeter so she can do some teeter surfing. I seriously have to get on teaching her to back up so she learns her rear end awareness now, yikes!

Crate game epiphany!

It was a rainy day today so we hung out inside, did some shopping, etc. etc. So today was a good day for crate games!
OhLa is now sitting at the back of her crate or downing when I go to open the door. I don't really care which one, so long as she chooses one and doesn't do a halfer ( sometimes she tries to cheat by doing a half down, which is OhLa speak for I'm ready to bolt. Not okay there girlie!). I can reach in and put the leash on without her standing up or leaning forward, I can stand up and I can even tug on the leash and she stays. She gets it, at last! I tug on the leash and she leans back, good girl! She releases like a rocket on her release cue too, perfect!
Today's great success though is not about the sit, the down, or even the leash (as good a feat as that one is), it's all about TURNS today.
In agility, a dog needs to learn to naturally turn into their owner. Take a jump, turn in and come back to handler, do a tunnel and turn into handler etc. This way the dog stays on course and you use the natural draw of the handler to maintain a connection with the dog. Surprisingly enough, dogs need to be taught this behaviour. Every dog, like every person is right or left handed. They prefer to turn one way over the other. In OhLa's case, she is a right turner. Every time she goes into her kennel she turns to the right. As a handler I know (thanks to people smarter than myself) that I need to train her muscles and her brain to work equally well turning in either direction. (Remember the good old days of "off side"? yah well, there's no such thing, just a dog and handler that have not learned to work on their less desirable side. We want to prevent this, and teach OhLa to turn into her handler, no matter where she is. What better place than the crate! I send her in, give her a little poke on her left side and she should turn into me since I am on the left of her crate and the left side of her crate door is open. Yeah well, not so much! I must have poked her twenty times, she was really insistent on the right hand turn! She finally got it and she received her entire breakfast as a reward. Session two I only had to poke her about five times before she caught on again, lots of rewards for doing it right! Session three I only had to poke her twice. And at supper tonight? She did it ALL BY HERSELF, smart girl! Hooray! So tomorrow we'll do some more left hand turns and then I'll open the right side of the crate door, stand on the right, and see what we get! Lucky for me the way her crate is positioned, the left hand side of the door will be open unless I move the crate away from the wall. This is good, as it will pattern her heavily to the left, her weaker side every time she goes into her kennel.

Today she is busy bringing me every sock she can find in the house (some of which came out of the clean laundry basket thank you very much!). She loves to show me her "prizes" which is very sweet; plus we get to practice bringing it to my hand, to which I of course remark on how lovely this particular sock is and return it to her, but only if she shows me some nice self control and takes it when given to her. Fun games!

Wobble board Yee, but not quite Haw!

April 23

Session 1 Wobble board. OhLa had an epiphany on the board today, all her feet on, going back and forth. She figured out that when the board tips, the rewards arrive! All I need now is to see her little tail give it's happy wag while she's on there and we can start moving on to some teeter games too. She was pretty proud of herself today! (And I was proud of her smart girl!)

Session 2: Differentiating Sit and down
Now that she has been getting her downs just on the verbal cue "flat" it was time to mix it up a little. This afternoons session was all about getting her to listen to what I was saying. Mixing up sit and flat in random order. The first few times she just defaulted to the flat, she did it enough times that I helped her out with the sit hand cue along with the verbal a couple times. Aha her brain said! This is a work in progress.

Session 3: shaping the bottom of the a-frame. I thought I'd get going on the down contact behaviour and shape her to get on the bottom. Not so smart on my part, her shaping skills aren't there yet for one thing, and for another I haven't done any rear end awareness or back up with her, two skills that are really helpful when shaping the down contact. Whoops. I ended up putting her bum up there and giving her cookies on the bottom with her head in the two on two off position so all wasn't lost of course, but note to self I need to quit rushing things. I am impatient (and so is OhLa methinks!) so what can we say!

Until tomorrow, licks and wags from the Pest (this is her new nickname, she is currently jabbing her head under my arm trying to get me to DO something!)

Playing Catch up

The last week has been crazy, so I am just now going to post all the happenings of the last week. Yee Haw, here we go!

April 14th 2010
OhLa arrives at the PG airport. I picked her up with no incident, and she popped out of her kennel here at home happy as can be. She whipped around the yard like a wild thing sniffing everything in sight. What a pretty girl! :)
She was introduced outdoors to Mollie my husky (she is the snarky bag of my crew, the princess, and the reigning champion of this is mine and this is mine and this is mine too), Marty my old man Border Collie and Cai my 7 year old BC. A little posturing, she is standing on her tippy toes, hackles up and clearly uncomfortable with meet and greet. But all is well, they get off the deck, pee on each others pee and generally ignore each other.
Training session 1: OhLa's first meal at my house is used to introduce the clicker. Click feed click feed click feed etc. She does well with the clicker no issues with sound, though she is molesting my hand something fierce. Note to self, teach no mugging!

April 15th
Training Session 1: Name recognition. Even though OhLa already knows her name, I work on name recognition so she correlates my voice saying her name with click and reward. This is important, as I will need her to respond immediately and with happiness on the agility field. We also work on hand targets this session. She gets to touch, my hand but needs work on speed and a harder push with a closed mouth. Each time she targets she is offering a slightly different behaviour.
Session 2: No mugging. I started out with the cookies in my hand but she really struggled with this, molested me like crazy! This may be from her show training (which I don't really want to muck up for her mom) so I put the pile of cookies on the floor and we worked it that way. It took her a while, but she finally laid down, backed off and got a cookie. Once she figured out the game we were off to the races. Of course I pushed it and tried to stand up and she swiped half the pile. Two points to OhLa! Session two also included working on the sit. I want a nice snappy sit on a verbal only. She tends to want to stand more than anything else and seems to be responding more the the hand signal of sit than a verbal cue. Note to self, work on verbal cues.
Session 3: No mugging. This session I put the cookies on the floor and OhLa put herself in a down. It seems down is going to be default behaviour for self control exercises. This session I was able to mess with the pile of kibbles a little, picking them up, dropping them etc. without her moving. Also worked on me starting to stand up a little. Also her understanding her new release cue (which is OKAY said in a high voice).
Worked on down, it seems she needs a hand signal to do a down or I don't know what her word is for down. No worries, I want to train her into a fast accordion down for the table and would have introduced a new cue for this behaviour anyway. So this session I introduced her new "super fast down cue" which will be the word "flat" along with the hand signal. She is only rewarded for the faster downs. In between downs I run around and get her pumped up a little and excited before saying the word and giving the hand signal.
Tug. Woo hoo! I used a toy with a long handle and sheepskin to entice her to grab it, and grab it she did! After the first few tries of me ripping it out of her mouth she grabbed it and held on, no way was she letting me have it again! We had a good little session, then I tried to get the toy back. Ha! She needs to learn a release cue after a rousing game of tug. She had her paws all over my arms trying to grab that toy and not let me have it. I see some more self control coming her way!
Sit/Stay. Introduced sit with rewards for me moving around her while she sat. She is not keen on sitting and not coming with me so this will be an important work in progress.

April 16th
Session 1: No mugging. I stood up all the way and she beat me to the pile! Brat! Score another one for OhLa! She is definitely getting the concept though and is really starting to connect the word okay with her cue to release.
Session 2: fast downs. Worked outside on the flat cue. The downs are faster but she is still needing the hand signal to get them quickly, she is not listening to verbal cues. Work in progress!
Session 3: Shaping. Indoors we did a pure shaping exercise. She does a lot of waiting for me to show her or lure her into what i want her to do. To be successful in her training (at least in the ways I like to do things) I need to her to be more confident with experimenting with things. This session I went for the slightest of offerings. She was nodding her head a little so I shaped that into her putting her head down inbetween her paws. She experimented a little, I know she figured out that an action got her a cookie, but I am not convinced that she really understood. I need to do more free shaping with her in the future and build on this stuff.

April 17th
Rest Day! Today she got to be just a dog. This didn't work too well in my favour as she was a little ramped up. Cai made the mistake of going in her kennel to check it out and the two of them got into a scrap INSIDE the kennel. Luckily no damage done, neither of them are serious, just crabby.

April 18th
Session 1: crate games. Now that she is beginning to understand the no mugging exercises it is time to start on crate games. One of her worst habits is her enjoyment over shoving her way through the crate door when you go to open it. Yikes! First of all this is just pushy on her part, and secondly, in a vehicle if she does that and I don't have a handle on her she could get killed. Plus our crate games (I follow Susan Garretts Crate games DVD, an excellent investment!) lead into a lot of the foundational skills for agility. So we worked on me touching the latch means she gets a cookie in the back of the crate. I was able to work up to opening the door with her in a down in the kennel (I'd like a sit at the back but she defaults to a down at this point, i'm not going to worry about that too much, I'll just reward more heavily when I get the sit instead) without her bolting. We also worked on using the release word to come out of the crate, and rewards for going straight back in the kennel again.
Session2: all about tugging! She needed to work of some steam, and she needs to learn to get it and give it with me. I introduced get it and started the one two three game (another of Susan's foundation games). Still needs lots of work on "thank you" or spitting out the toy. She is really liking this whole tugging business! Maybe a little too much as now she is running at me and grabbing the toy from my hands trying to steal it.
Session 3: wobble board. Her first introduction to a piece of equipment. The wobble board is a square board that moves around. It helps teach body awareness, cause and effect (if I do this, then it moves and I get a reward) and generally helps them get used to movement under the feet for the teeter later on. She was none too happy about this thing! She got two front feet on but really wanted to do anything else but get on there for the cookie.

April 19th
Session 1: wobble board (this one will be the start of all our exercises for a while so she gets on it when she is the most excited). She was better today, putting two feet on willingly, now way those back ones are going on though!
One jump. She was introduced to the jump at 10" with me sitting next to the standard. All she had to do was hop back and forth for a cookie. She did pretty well, but her obsession over my cookie hand is hindering her performance. She needs to learn to leave that hand alone and discover that both hands have cookies.
Fast downs: getting better, starting to respond to the verbal.
Hand targets: still a little weak, but she definitely knows she has to touch the hand and will move to get it.
Session 2: two toys of equal value retrieve. I pulled out two of exactly the same toy to work on her retrieve. She loves to go get the toy, and she equally loves to run past me with it flaunting it! I want to encourage returning the toy to my hand (interestingly in the house she likes to bring me socks to my hand very nicely, but toys are just a little too fun to return I think).
First class!
OhLa went to her first group class tonight, Building blocks for performance. Worked on crate games, sit stay, tug and run with toy without grabbing at it, and had an introduction to the table (jump up there and play tug with me while you're up there. She did great! I expected her to be way more distracted. I manipulated her environment a little for success (had her drag the leash and made sure she was in a more quiet corner) but for her first time in the training center and her first class with me she did remarkable well. Smart girl!

April 20th
Crate games galore. Trying to get her to sit still while I put the leash on her. I must have shut the door on her 30 times before she finally figured out that me putting my hand in the crate was not an automatic release. Sheesh! Too bad for her I am more stubborn than she is! In the end I was able to get the leash on her and even pull on it and not have her move out of her sit.
Sit/Stay (still can only get about two steps away, but it is improving)
Wobble board. She has four feet on! She does the wobble board for breakfast and is now getting on willingly and even making it move (though she is not yeehaw about it yet). We are not moving on to teeter games until she is yeehaw about the wobble board!

April 21/22
Poor baby didn't get a whole lot. I had life get in the way a little so she has been practicing her crate games and her life skills but not so much agility! On to more things this weekend!

From the Beginning!

Meet OhLaLa! This pretty girl is a super spunky one year old German Shorthaired Pointer. Already successful in the show ring and the hunting field, OhLa is embarking on a quest to take over the agility field! Her training diary will be a catologue of her foundational skills as she learns them, good and bad, success and failure (on my part I am sure!). The first few weeks will be writtend diary only, but soon you will be seeing video of her skills in her daily diary.
Wish us Luck!